Case Study 1: Problem Solving

Mr. Lee enjoys organizing his history class around problem statements. For example, when examining the Great Depression Mr. Lee split the class into groups and had each group research and address a different problem:

Group A:

How can a country deal with mass unemployment?

Group B:

What can be done about soaring high school drop-out rates?

Group C:

How can a society address the growth of the homeless population?

Group D:

How can a government regain the trust of its people?

During these activities, Mr. Lee helps his students classify the problem, research the time and events surrounding the problem, and begin to develop and evaluate possible solutions. Mr. Lee planned for this activity to take several class periods as well as time outside of class. He reserved the school computer lab for 2 class days and put several resources on hold in the school library. On the first day of the activity, after about 20 minutes of group discussion, Mr. Lee assessed his groups and noticed that

Group A felt they were done, having made a list of 3 ways to reduce unemployment: (1) take away welfare, (2) stop accepting imports, (3) teach people how to write resumes.

Group B was busy examining a calendar, plotting out a timeline for future meetings, and dividing up the workload.

Group C had a rough outline of their plan and was searching for information from their text and online (using the classroom computer) to find out if their plan was supported or not.

Group D had spent most of their time asking Mr. Lee questions such as, “Would they need to do a class presentation?” “Did they need to write a paper of their findings and was it one paper for the group or did everyone have to do their own?” “How many solutions did they need to find and evaluate,” etc.

This activity contains 8 questions.

How might the problems Mr. Lee assigned to his class be classified?

linguistic, ill-structured, untimed, and collaborative

linguistic, well-structured, timed, and independent

non-linguistic, ill-structured, schooled, and independent

non-linguistic, well-structured, unschooled, and collaborative

What should Mr. Lee keep in mind when doing these types of class activities? The nature of this task (problem) may

cause students to attribute performance to ability rather than prior experience.

emphasize routine approaches that will take the place of exploration.

hide the thinking abilities of students with less experience or ability.

increase students’ feelings of stress and anxiety, as with formal assessments.

Mr. Lee has students work on these problem-solving activities in groups. What must he keep in mind because of this decision?

Individual strengths and weaknesses may be difficult to ascertain.

Problem solving may be limited in scope and uncreative.

Some students may not work and will hold their group back.

Students may believe that all problems have one right answer.

The assignment Mr. Lee gave to his students was to research and address a particular problem. Consider the structure of this assignment. Given this structure what should Mr. Lee do?

Assess student work collaborative and individually.

Construct evaluation criteria with the students.

Emphasize the language of problem solving.

Teach the processes and strategies for problem solving.

Considering the guidelines for effective problem solving, which student group seems the most focused on the need to understand the problem?

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Which of the guidelines for effective problem solving was Group B most engaged in?

Carry out the plan.

Devise a plan.

Examine the solution.

Understand the problem.

If you were Mr. Lee, which guidelines for effective problem solving would you suggest Group A revisit, given their current progress?

Carry out the plan.

Devise a plan.

Examine the solution.

Understand the problem.

Which of Mr. Lee’s student groups seems to have made the most progress with regard to solving this problem?

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

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